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| Hiking | 10.76 Miles |
1,500 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.76 Miles | 6 Hrs 40 Mns | | 1.61 mph |
| 1,500 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Kentuck Peak has been on my radar for a couple of years, though this hike did not go quite as I envisioned it. My thought was to get a few miles by jogging the Maricopa Trail and then head off trail and then bag the peak. I used Bronco TH as my starting point and got on the trail just after 6:30. I didn't even get 100 yards before realizing that my knee and ankle were in no mood for jogging. This annoyed me at first but turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence. My initial thought was to take the Maricopa Trail to its highest point, ( this would have been about 5 miles in before it started to descend down the southern end of this mountain range), and then scramble to the top of the nearby peak and then from there make my way over to Kentuck. The problem with this was my impression of where Kentuck stood in conjunction to this nearby peak. As I walked along Maricopa I referenced a downloaded track of a previous hike and realized that Kentuck stood further to the east than I realized. I had gone about 3 miles on the Maricopa before I layed eyes on Kentuck and realized that I needed to alter my plans. Checking my Garmin confirmed that this was where Flying Fliver had accessed "the back country".
Having identified my objective and knowing that the entire approach was off trail I didn't really reference my garmin for the downloaded track. On reflection, maybe I should have. It might have gone a little easier. But to be honest there were certain things I enjoyed about my route despite the difficulties. My thought process was to avoid unnecessary climbing. I did not want to climb a hill only to have to descend and climb again. With that thought process in mind I dropped down to a major wash that heading back toward Kendrick Peak. This turned out to be a good and bad decision. The path in for the first .75+ was clear and had water flowing along the carved rock channels. There is something about hiking next to flowing water that adds an element to any hike and having to rock hop around it just spiced it up more. This worked well until the vegetation "flushed" me out. I ended up on the south side of the wash with this "flushing", but I was far enough in that I could see clear "pathway" to Kentuck Peak.....on the north side of the wash.  So with a little bit of work and some patience I found a decent crossing point to get to the north side and then it was just a matter of zigzagging my way up the slope to get to the ridgeline. The recent rains made for some soil and wobbly rocks so there were some  moments. The second reward with taking this approach was when I finally did hit the ridgeline the views were very rewarding! I had been enclosed in the valley for the entire hike and so to get those panoramic views was very rewarding. There was still a little bit of work to get to the peak but after negotiating the slope, I wasn't complaining. Views form the peak were awesome!  Stumbled across one of the survey markers. Biggest surprise was that I was able to see part of the San Francisco Peaks to the north. Probably would not have picked up on it if it wasn't for their snowy slopes that stood in stark contrast to the blue skies and the more mundane brown mountains in the foreground.
The descent was much easier. I took the north ridgeline down all the way to where i met a side stream that emptied into the wash that I followed on my entry. I ended up having to climb up the other side of this wash and work my way around the side of the hill to get back to the Maricopa Trail. After that it was all trail back to the Bronco TH. Had the mountain to my self didn't see anyone or anything while I was out there. Weather was great. Had some nice stratus clouds for most of the hike which provided more shade than I was expecting. |
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